 | This article may lend undue weight to certain ideas, incidents, or controversies.(February 2013) |
 | |
| Founded | 2002 |
|---|---|
| Founders | |
| Headquarters | Edinburgh, Scotland |
| Location |
|
Director | Simon Barrow |
| Website | ekklesia |
Ekklesia is a not-for-profit British think tank which examines the role of religion on public life and policy in the UK.
Ekklesia was founded in 2002 by Jonathan Bartley and Simon Barrow. [1] In September 2002, Ekklesia launched a Sunday programme on BBC Radio Scotland to encourage pacification and minimize violent insurrections in Iraq. [2]
In June 2006, Ekklesia launched a campaign advocating for the separation of the role of the church and state in weddings. The think tank argued that the "one size fits all" attempt to fuse religious and civic marriage was a source of great confusion. [3]
In February 2009, the Bishop of Willesden Pete Broadbent called the directors of Ekklesia "self-appointed self-publicists who speak for nobody ... and pretend that they're speaking for mainstream Christianity". [4] In 2010, when the Christian Concern lobbying group launched the Not Ashamed Day, Ekklesia stated there was no evidence Catholics were being shamed because of their religion. [5] In June 2011, Symon Hill, a bisexual Christian writer and a director of Ekklesia, embarked on a Birmingham-to-London pilgrimage against homophobia. [6]
In October 2012, Ekklesia, in partnership with Edinburgh City Centre Churches Together, the Cornerstone Bookshop, and the Episcopal Diocese of Edinburgh's Adventures in Faith programme, launched the Centre for Living Christianity (CLiC) to explore religious faith in skeptical times. [7]
In March 2016, Ekklesia organized a group letter to ask the new Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Stephen Crabb, to rethink his ministry's position regarding welfare cuts and benefit sanctions. [8]
Jonathan Bartley left the think tank in 2016 and subsequently became co-leader of the Green Party of England and Wales.
In June 2019, during US President Donald Trump's official visit to the UK, Simon Barrow called Trump "anti-gospel". [9]
The think tank is financed by donations and the online sale of fair-trade goods. [1]
Christianity is an Abrahamic monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus of Nazareth. It is the world's largest religion, with about 2.8 billion followers, representing one-third of the global population. Its adherents, known as Christians, make up a majority of the population in 157 countries and territories, and believe that Jesus is the Son of God, whose coming as the messiah was prophesied in the Hebrew Bible and chronicled in the New Testament.
Rowan Douglas Williams, Baron Williams of Oystermouth, is a Welsh Anglican bishop, theologian and poet. He was the 104th Archbishop of Canterbury, a position he held from December 2002 to December 2012. Previously the Bishop of Monmouth and Archbishop of Wales, Williams was the first Archbishop of Canterbury in modern times not to be appointed from within the Church of England.
The Christian left is a range of centre-left and left-wing Christian political and social movements that largely embrace social justice principles and uphold a social doctrine or social gospel.
Christian Church is an ecclesiological term referring to what different Christian denominations conceive of as being the true body of Christians or the original institution established by Jesus. "Christian Church" has also been used in academia as a synonym for Christianity, despite the fact that it is composed of multiple churches or denominations, many of which hold a doctrinal claim of being the "one true church", to the exclusion of the others.
Christian socialism is a religious and political philosophy that blends Christianity and socialism, endorsing left-wing politics and socialist economics on the basis of the Bible and the teachings of Jesus. Many Christian socialists believe capitalism to be idolatrous and rooted in the sin of greed. Christian socialists identify the cause of social inequality to be the greed that they associate with capitalism. Christian socialism became a major movement in the United Kingdom beginning in the 19th century. The Christian Socialist Movement, known as Christians on the Left since 2013, is one formal group, as well as a faction of the Labour Party.
Christian anarchism is a Christian movement in political theology that claims anarchism is inherent in Christianity and the Gospels. It is grounded in the belief that there is only one source of authority to which Christians are ultimately answerable—the authority of God as embodied in the teachings of Jesus. It therefore rejects the idea that human governments have ultimate authority over human societies. Christian anarchists denounce the state, believing it is violent, deceitful and, when glorified, idolatrous.
Persecution of Christians in the post–Cold War era refers to the persecution of Christians from 1989 to the present. Part of a global problem of religious persecution, persecution of Christians in this era is taking place in Africa, the Americas, Europe, Asia and Middle East.
Thought for the Day is a daily scripted slot on the Today programme on BBC Radio 4 offering "reflections from a faith perspective on issues and people in the news", broadcast at around 7:45 each Monday to Saturday morning. Nowadays lasting 2 minutes and 45 seconds, it is a successor to the five-minute religious sequence Ten to Eight (1965–1970) and, before that, Lift Up Your Hearts, which was first broadcast five mornings a week on the BBC Home Service from December 1939, initially at 7:30, though soon moved to 7:47. The feature is mainly delivered by those involved in religious practice; often, these are Christian thinkers, but there have been numerous occasions where representatives of other faiths, including Judaism, Islam, Buddhism, Sikhism and Jainism, have presented Thought for the Day.
Religious socialism is a type of socialism based on religious values. Members of several major religions have found that their beliefs about human society fit with socialist principles and ideas. As a result, religious socialist movements have developed within these religions. Those movements include Buddhist socialism, Christian socialism, Islamic socialism and Jewish socialism. According to the Encyclopedia Britannica Online, socialism is a "social and economic doctrine that calls for public rather than private ownership or control of property and natural resources. According to the socialist view, individuals do not live or work in isolation but live in cooperation with one another. Furthermore, everything that people produce is in some sense a social product, and everyone who contributes to the production of a good is entitled to a share in it. Society as a whole, therefore, should own or at least control property for the benefit of all its members. [...] Early Christian communities also practiced the sharing of goods and labour, a simple form of socialism subsequently followed in certain forms of monasticism. Several monastic orders continue these practices today".
A faith school is a school in the United Kingdom that teaches a general curriculum but which has a particular religious character or formal links with a religious or faith-based organisation. The term is most commonly applied to state-funded faith schools, although many independent schools also have religious characteristics.
The Christian Council of Britain (CCoB) is an organisation founded by Robert West. While the CCoB claims to be "an independent, non-political organisation autonomous of any political party in Britain," it is closely associated with the British National Party, and West has been described as the BNP's religious affairs spokesman.
Jonathan Charles Bartley is a British politician and was Co-Leader of the Green Party of England and Wales, a position he shared with Caroline Lucas and then, from 4 September 2018, with Siân Berry. He was the Green Party's national Work and Pensions spokesperson and the party's Parliamentary candidate for Streatham in the 2015 general election. He was the Unite to Remain candidate for Dulwich and West Norwood at the 2019 general election.
Christian Concern is the trading name of CCFON Ltd, a not for profit advocacy group described as 'one of the most prominent evangelical organisations in the United Kingdom', reaching a mailing list of more than 43,000 people. Christian Concern seeks to alter law and influence the media and government, and is linked to the Christian Legal Centre organisation.
Christian atheism is a form of Christianity that rejects the theistic claims of Christianity, but draws its beliefs and practices from Jesus' life and/or teachings as recorded in the New Testament Gospels and other sources.
The Accord Coalition for Inclusive Education is a campaign coalition of civil society groups and individuals which seeks to ensure all state funded schools in England and Wales are made open and suitable for all, regardless of staff, children or their family's religious or non-religious beliefs. Launched in 2008, the group campaigns for state funded schools to better facilitate religious mixing and the growth of mutual understanding between those of different beliefs, in the interests of equal opportunity, integration and cohesion in society.
Robert Malcolm Brian West is a British National Party (BNP) activist and founder of the Christian Council of Britain.
Pandipeddi Chenchiah (1886–1959), spelt also as Pandippedi Chenchiah, a first generation indigenous convert to Christianity, was a jurist, South Indian Christian theologian, and radical thinker of Rethinking Christianity in India group for Indianisation of Christianity. He published Rethinking Christianity in India, as an Indian Christian answer to the Hendrik Kraemer's The Christian Message in a Non-Christian World.
Samuel Rodriguez Jr. is an Evangelical American Christian leader born to Puerto Rican parents in the United States. He is a pastor, movie producer, author, civil rights activist and television personality. He is the president of the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.
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Faith deconstruction, also known as deconstructing faith, evangelical deconstruction, or the deconstruction movement, is a phenomenon within American evangelicalism in which Christians rethink their faith and jettison previously held beliefs, sometimes to the point of no longer identifying as Christians. It is closely related to the exvangelical movement.
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